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And things.
i used to self harm.. did it for a few years. i've been SI free for a year and a half now.
trig
i think the arms are more satisfying because they bleed more easily. i cut several parts of my body..stomach, legs, arms, shoulders, hips, feet, but in all places but my arms, i did myself serious injuries without meaning to. i cut part of a finger off by accident, i had to have numerous sets of stitches.. all because nowhere else would bleed like my arms, so i went back to that, and just hid it again because it was safer
There's a massive sheep mentality when it comes to cutting. I know people who cut themselves, roll their sleeves up, and kick off conversation with "oh look, i've been cutting myself again". I really don't know what to say to such people - the mind boggles.
But I suppose it's par for the course. Nihilism in modern society is pretty hard to avoid, and with that you'll get the associated fashions.
It annoys me how people say that it's fashionable, but at the same time it annoys me more when people do it for attention, or practice cutting and blood play in public. They're trivialising people with real problems.
I didn't mean to say that it was fashionable, (whether it is for some is not a debate I want to get into
the thing is that these days it IS fashionable. torment is the new black. the youngsters have seen girl, interruped, and they've read prozac nation and they compete over how many drugs they've been on and how severe their condition is.
when was the last time you heard someone say: i have depression, but it's only mild depression, and a bit of exercise and healthy eating should sort it out.
no, you don't, cause positive's not cool these days. we go through cycles of cool. we've been through eating disorders and we've been through substance abuse, and right now self-harm is the illness du jour.
and yes, OF COURSE there are a load of kids with geniune, serious problems. but how the hell do you weed them out when everyone you speak to has a story about their geniune, serious problem? especially as, in my experience, the people who need the most help are the ones who are less likely to speak out about it.
I agree with your post except for this bit. Eating disorders and substance abuse have never really been in vogue.
Oh they have, in the mid-90s heroin/anorexic chic was so fashionable, and every second girl on the street was claiming she was bulimic.
Mental illness is interesting, and people want to be interesting. That's why every teenager in a Mori poll is a sex-craved coke-snorting suicidal depressive. Some of course are, but some do it because they want to look interesting and have attention.
People who mutilate themselves for attention are damaged people, and I think that is forgotten. But they are not damaged in the way they want to be.
I do baulk at decrying people as "attention-seekers" because it's not helpful. I would rather that the attention-seekers were getting the attention rather than nobody getting the medical help needed. Some people don't care that people can see their wounds, that doesn't mean they solely want attention.
What kaffrin said is hard to fault, but it is terribly tactless.
Heroin chic wasn't as widespread throughout society as a fashion as cutting/depression is now. It was more concentrated in the fashion/music/entertainment industry - whereas cutting/depression/nihilism is lapped up on massive scale by today's youth to a far larger extent.
only as tactless as this:
or this:
i feel.
I think it was, really. I don't think the SH "epidemic" is anywhere near as widespread as the media love to claim, it tends to be certain people from certain social demographics that do it- the "gothic" culture in particular IMHO.
Kaffrin: point?
You can drag up a search from months ago about something tangential. Well done. Have a cookie.
Especially as I have never claimed to be a purveyor of tact, and agreed with what you said anyway.
:banghead:
that i find it strange that outspoken comments about one condition are tactless, but outspoken comments about others pass without incident.
no, it's not just you. i'm just sick of people who dare to speak out about self harm being silenced, while it's deemed fine to poke fun or even pass alternate judgement about everything else.
I don't even remember posting the second thing you dragged up, and the first one was just tactless.
And I'm sure I was pulled up on it too, by RB as well as yourself.
Was heroin chic not just the name given to an already standardised look in the fashion business??
It is goths who largely cut themselves, true. But for once I think the media aren't really to blame for exaggerating the issue - the gothic subculture is expanding and most 13-14 year olds I see about seem to be following the fashion, so we aren't talking about a small minority.
that isn't the point, anyway.
i can't find a lot of the threads about self harm now, cause they have since been deleted, but every time someone dares to post an opposing view, every bugger jumps on their back, and they are beaten into submission. and i don't see what's so precious about it.
the eating disorder thing is an obvious one to counter with, but in all honesty, it's everything else. people have differing opinions of every aspect of life, and i'm all for hearing them. what i'm not all for is selective censorship. what's the point of even having this forum if not for debate.
I think its expanding, but I do think the media are making a mountain out of a molehill about SH.
What particularly concerns me is that many media commentators are denouncing all SHers as poor little rich kids who are only doing it for attention/to be interesting/to spite mummy (delete as appropriate). It was exactly the same with eating disorders in the mid-1990s- if you have an eating disorder, its because you're seeking attention, not that you are mentally ill.
I think the problem is serious, but I do think it is overstated. Most of this sort of thing is done by surveys, and teenagers lie in surveys to make themselves appear interesting and worldly.
when i was 13, the SH phase was just becoming 'cool'..(this was 5 years ago, and before a lot of this media panic etc). it spread through school like wildfire.. everyone was doing it.. some because they had real problems to deal with (and before you start harping on about teenage angst, i'm talking problems like abuse, rape, death of parents etc), but most of the kids, they just wanted to be cool or to see what it felt like; what the fuss was all about.
by the time we were 15 i could only name 2 people in my class who hadnt tried self harmin some way. for some it became a big problem and for others it was just a passing phase..but the scary thing to me was that in that case, 28 out of 30 kids had used self harm
I think Kermit pretty much hit the nail on the head with saying that the people who are doing it as a form of making themselves appear more interesting and worldly are equally as ill as the people who do it for real but in an entirely different way.
Note that I said "largely goths". Non-goths who cut themselves aren't going to be doing it as a fashion statement - I'd presume them to be genuine straight off.
The subculture itself attracts unbalanced people - the media can't be blamed for that.
I don't think it is as serious a problem as the media like to portray.
The media are liberal with their hyperbole because hyperbole sells papers. Stories of coked-up self-harming promiscuous alcoholic teens sell more papers than "boy, 14, does homework and has early night".
I don't trust the media to tell me the time without lies, half-truths and spin.
I'm sure they did.
I'll tell you why I'm skeptical.
I had a good stable family home, I was well, I was well looked-after. I cut myself badly. Admittedly I was bullied, but not that badly.
To an outsider I'd have looked like someone doing it to see what it was like.
I don't wish to dispute something that is obviously personal experience, but I am skeptical about how widespread your personal experience is. I suspect that you had an unfortunate class, or a class of liars- my experience is that most people don't self-harm, and will look on those who do with pity.
i used that as just one example of many. having suffered from depression myself, i got involved in support groups, first as a participant, and then to give help and advice. i did some awareness stuff about self harm around my school and that opened my eyes as to how bad the problem is even with the younger kids (years 7 and 8). i would see myself as having a rather widespread experience of self harm.
i agree that the amount of people who had tried self harm in my class was slightly higher than in others, but not significantly
But it was unheard of at the girl's school down the road too.
I don't wish to dispute anyone's personal experience, but I don't believe that the schools in this country are filled with people dabbling with SH. There is normally one depressive who hides it, and one attention-seeker, in every class- the rest just plod along without doing it.
If you are in "support groups" then you will attract the people who do it.
More people on these message boards do it because the internet attracts the mentally ill. Even here isn't representative of real life.
It was exactly the same when there used to be tales of schoolgirls the country over not eating- it wasn't true then, either.
i'm not saying that everyone is doing it; just that you can't dismiss teh whole problem as media hype